The Professional Bull Riders tour kicked off its 25th anniversary season last week with its 12th visit to Madison Square Garden—and while there was plenty of everything you might expect from such a red-meat, (usually) red-state spectacle—hats, boots, and buckles were well-represented; U.S. Customs and Border Protection provided the color guard (and staffed a number of recruiting stations in the hallways of the Garden); and, right after a scantily clad troupe of Monster Energy girls strutted their cropped tops across the dirt-filled floor of the arena, which had been partially lit on fire while M-80 explosions scared the living daylights out of unsuspecting New Yorkers up for a bit of a cowboy lark, the crowd was asked to remove their hats for the invocation, during which the master of ceremonies asked God to bless and keep the bull riders, the bulls, and the servicemen laying their lives on the line so that we may continue to enjoy the freedoms that make America great. A few minutes later, the presence of Donald Trump Jr. and his children is announced to the crowd—which gave the fleece-clad presidential progeny a decidedly muted reception, with polite applause, mixed with muffled boos.

Aside from the pyrotechnics and the prayer, though, are the production values of the PBR—there’s also smoke, indoor fireworks, and exquisitely loud interstitial music that ranges from the late country legend George Jones to David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” Pharrell Williams, and Justin Timberlake. It’s the sort of thing—along with a good marketing plan—that’s seen the event grab better ratings than some pro hockey, golf, or U.S. Open tennis broadcasts.

When it comes to the riders themselves, though, things start to get gloriously weird. For every J. B. Mauney—a Marlboro Red–smoking John Wayne type who rarely sees inside a gym but completed his 500th career ride last week (only two others in the history of PBR competition have ridden a bull for eight seconds more than 500 times) with 13 anchors and a screw holding his shoulder together after a bad ride last year that tore ligaments and tendons right off his bone)—there’s a Jess Lockwood, the 20-year-old Justin Bieber look-alike (and reigning world champion) who, after last year’s Garden competition, while all the other cowboys were heading out to the bars, took his girlfriend to a candy store. Or a Shane Proctor, a Washington native, sporting handmade, custom-designed Louis Vuitton chaps made by a friend, who did surgery on an LV garment bag to procure the material. (Though Proctor himself often designs and sews his own chaps and sometimes makes them for other riders—his mother taught him to sew when he was 10 and, being a natural competitor, he tested his stitching in sewing contests.) “I’m a little more out there than most guys,” Proctor says. “I also think I might be the only rider out here who even knows what Louis Vuitton is. They’re my New York chaps.”

And then there’s Neil Holmes, 32, one of the few African-American riders on the tour in recent years, who is spearheading a new initiative from the PBR tour to teach inner-city kids around the country about how the professional bull-riding circuit works, from the bulls and the riders to the grounds crew and support staff, along with teaching them about Western culture in general. “It’s kind of rare for minority kids in big cities to have a chance to come down to a place like this and meet the riders and the people behind the scenes and really see how something like this gets put together,” Holmes says. “And it’s been an honor to be able to tell them my story.”

It’s a long story with a lot of surprising detours. The short version: Unlike virtually every other rider on the tour, who generally start riding bulls very young, Holmes didn’t get on a bull until he was about 17. It’s not something his mother was entirely pleased about. “She first found out about it when she had to pick me up at a hospital after a bull stomped on my hand,” Holmes, who has four kids of his own, tells me. Fifteen years later, Holmes, having suffered 20 or so concussions and innumerable broken bones over a long career in riding, calls his mother his best friend, and credits her for his success and perseverance. He’s walked away from the tour before, “But then I realized,” he says, “that without bulls, my life’s bullshit—and so is my bank account,” he adds, with a laugh. Giving something back to the sport—and imparting some knowledge and wisdom to disadvantaged kids who otherwise would never have a chance to see the odd combination of grit and grace that bull riders demonstrate, week in and week out—is deeply satisfying to Holmes. “I mean, yeah, there’s no doubt that riding bulls is dangerous—but you learn a lot about yourself and what you can do, what’s possible when you think it’s not, from this kind of life.”

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